CTS Blog and Articles

The endurance athlete's source for information on training, nutrition, motivation, strategy, and more.

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The 6 Keys to Great Training and Big Improvements

Weekend Reading: Do These 8 Things To Be Faster, Safer, and More Confident in Corners

By Jim Rutberg, CTS Pro Coach and co-author “The Time-Crunched Cyclist” For a long time petrol heads derided American muscle cars for being great in a straight line and utterly useless when they encountered a corner. European performance cars, they argued, were designed for drivers. They had power for speed but also advanced suspension,…

Posted: April 10, 2015

Author: CTS

Do These 12 Things To Have a Great Cycling Season

As the days start to get noticeably longer and winter starts to give way to spring it’s time for training to get more specific and goal-oriented. The heart of the season is approaching quickly and now is the time to get organized. Here’s your punchlist of the top ways you can ensure that this…

Posted: April 8, 2015

Author: CTS

Athletes spend countless hours preparing to be at their best, but we learn the most about ourselves when we’re closest to failure. As endurance athletes I believe we actually seek out tough moments. We push ourselves with longer events and harder challenges and more competitive fields so we can reach the point where failure…

Posted: April 3, 2015

Author: CTS

4 Tour of Flanders Tips All Cyclists Can Benefit From

This Sunday I strongly suggest you find a live video feed of the Tour of Flanders. It’s always a race worth watching, and if watching the Ronde van Vlaanderen doesn’t inspire you to get out there and put in a storming Sunday ride, I don’t know what will. I raced Flanders with 7-Eleven and…

Posted: April 1, 2015

Author: CTS

Weekend Reading: How to go from “Fat and Slow” to “Lean and Fast”

This week has been crazy with Spring Break for the kids, a quick trip to Santa Ynez to drop in on the Spring Training Camp, and preparations for next week’s trip to Belgium for the Belgium Race Experience. Stay tuned for updates on that trip, as it’ll be my first time riding the Tour…

Posted: March 27, 2015

Author: CTS

Recovery Timing for Perfect Intervals

By Jim Rutberg, CTS Pro Coach So, you’re all ready to go out for your workout. You have food in your pocket, your bike is gleaming in the warm sun with a bottle of water and bottle of sports drink, your Smith glasses are sitting in the Giro helmet draped over your handlebars, and your Joule GPS…

Posted: March 25, 2015

Author: CTS

5 Tips to Becoming An Expert At Drafting

Financial advisors will tell you that the way to get (or stay) rich is to not just make more money, but also avoid wasting it. The same is true with how athletes get faster. It’s not just about how much power you can produce or how high you can push your lactate threshold pace….

Posted: March 20, 2015

Author: CTS

7 Springtime Mistakes Endurance Athletes Make

Over the past few years our coaches have spent the latter part of the winter and spring traveling to training camps and events, and that means talking with a lot of inquisitive athletes. And while every athlete is different, there are some topics that seem to come up every spring. If you can avoid…

Posted: March 18, 2015

Author: CTS

Weekend Reading: Were you fast once? Here’s how to get your speed back!

I often talk with my Coaches and Athlete Services staff about trends and themes they’re seeing with athletes. At times there’s an interesting convergence of ideas from athletes despite not knowing each other and living all over the world. Sometimes the commonality makes sense: athletes converge on the idea of weight loss in January….

Posted: March 13, 2015

Author: CTS

Weekend Reading: The Best Workout For Developing SPEED!

As we roll into March, many areas in the Northern Hemisphere are already in the race and event season and it’s not very far away for those of us still stuck in the snow. Winter was a good time to build aerobic and lactate threshold power with interval workouts and indoor training. Now it’s…